A Softer World

A Softer World is the web comic co-run by writer and novelist Joey Comeau and photographer Emily Horne. The comics appear every few days, always following the same format - triptych photos with short and usually fragmented text that is usually disturbing, dirty and a little disconcertingly hilarious simultaneously.
Also linked from the site is the archive of Joeyâs marvellous âOverqualifiedâ venture - a collection of (are they real?) cover letters that itâs claimed have... (continued)

A Softer World is the web comic co-run by writer and novelist Joey Comeau and photographer Emily Horne. The comics appear every few days, always following the same format - triptych photos with short and usually fragmented text that is usually disturbing, dirty and a little disconcertingly hilarious simultaneously.
Also linked from the site is the archive of Joeyâs marvellous âOverqualifiedâ venture - a collection of (are they real?) cover letters that itâs claimed have actually been sent to the companies concerned. These are usually grossly inappropriate, off-topic and some of the funniest material I have ever read. âDear Nintendoâ, he begins. âWe need a new Mario game, where you rescue the princess in the first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try and push down that sick feeling in your stomach that she's "damaged goods", a concept detailed again and again in the profoundly sex negative instruction booklet, and when Luigi makes a crack about her and Bowser, you break his nose and immediately regret it. When Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom castle bedroom "do you still love me?" you pretend to be asleep. You press the A button rhythmically, to control your breath, keep it even.â
On April 15th this year I went with a friend to the 333 Club in London to see Joey read from âOverqualifiedâ, which will be published in book format in 2009, as part of the Network Canada event, The Haliburton Literary Evening. I found myself laughing hysterically through the majority of this evening: Joey managed to reduce the small audience to tears (of laughter, not despair, although there was a little of that too) before he had even read any further than âDear Nintendoâ. He made it sound so innocent.
If you like things that are an uncomfortable blend of seriousness with dirty humour and laughing at things you shouldnât, then youâll probably enjoy spending an evening browsing around A Softer World. Somehow Emily and Joey have managed time and time again to present in their work the other side of life that, for most of us, lingers just out of sight and out of mind.